It was decided to entrust schoolchildren in Kyiv district to the same company as in Khadzhibey district

The Center for Financing and Economic Activity and Institutions of the Education System of Kyiv District of Odesa conducted a procurement to select a company that will supply food for schoolchildren.

This is stated in the Prozorro electronic procurement system, according to the Center for Public Investigations.

The procurement was conducted in the format of an open tender with special features, and the only participant was the private enterprise Ration Group. If the deal is concluded, the company expects to receive UAH 12 million 259 thousand.

According to the YouControl service, the owner and director of the private enterprise Ration Group is Maksym Yatsenko.

The company will provide meals for students in grades 1-4. The number of children to be fed is 5,856. Including: the number of children who will be fed breakfast - 4 thousand 727, the number of children who will eat lunch - 1 thousand 129. Number of days of meals: 35 days. The number of children and the number of days of meals are indicative and subject to change.

Last year, the Centers for Financing and Economic Activity of Educational Institutions in Peresypskyi, Khadzhibeyskyi and Prymorskyi districts of Odesa also selected companies to provide catering services to children in educational institutions.

In Khadzhybeyskyi district, the private enterprise Ration Group was chosen as the caterer, claiming UAH 10 million 511.7 thousand. No auction was held at that time either, using the format of open bidding with special features.

Open bidding with special features means that almost all terms are shorter than those of open bidding under the Law on Public Procurement. This means that this procurement is much faster than open tenders.

The period for submitting proposals is seven calendar days, and the period for challenging qualifications is five calendar days. Often, there is no auction during such tenders, so the participant has no competitors.

However, the year before last, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine temporarily changed the rules of bidding for the period of martial law in Ukraine and within 90 days from the date of its termination or cancellation. The government temporarily canceled electronic auctions. Since then, tenders announced in Prozorro can be held without an auction.

In September 2022, the Center for Public Investigations analyzed the composition of companies participating in tenders for the right to feed Odesa schoolchildren and identified the main players in this market in Odesa. The experts identified Fabrika Smaku LLC as one of the leaders.

Instead, Ratsiy Group PE was included in the second group of caterers, which received fewer tenders than Fabryka Smaku LLC and other leaders.

The journalists emphasized that Ration Group and Proviant Service were the legal successors of Odesa-based Olympia Service, owned by Maksym Yatsenko and Tetiana Tarasiuk. Before them, Olympia Service belonged to Svitlana Spivak, the mother of politician Dmytro Spivak.

Кирило Бойко